IMMORTAL STORY again and again

[jaime marzol]

i finally found my crappy vhs tape of IMMORTAL STORY. take the dvd and throw it away. try to find the vhs. the differences are huge. the vhs is a bouquet of colors. very dreammy, and rad. the dvd has that disturbing color that gives people that sweaty, pink clay complexion.

what the dvd has going for it is the framing because it's all there aspect ratio wise, but it has nothing else over the crappy vhs, which i have turned into a dvd.

you could call it the pastel version it's so different to the dvd.

[Tony]

Jaime:
you sure tha'ts not Orson's makeup looking gray and clay like?
I agree with you on the pastel quality, but there hasn't been a legit Immortal in NA has there? The VHS was official, I believe; perhaps this is the difference.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Is this some kind of joke?
Welles plays Mr. Charles CLAY in THE IMMORTAL STORY.
Stands to reason the film would have clay-like tones.
I seem to recall Welles' putty nose had a clayish color.

[R Kadin]

Well, it gives me some degree of hope to think that there might be a redeeming version of IS out there. Having seen only the Italian DVD version, I have yet to be persuaded of this film's oft-raphsodized merits.

[Tony]

I thought there was a BFI legal version; ar least that's the photocopy on my pirated version.

RK:
May I reccommend , if you haven't already, reading McBride's chapter on IS: it's possibly the single best thing on that film, and one which I always enjoy again and again.

[Terry]

Didn't you guys make a copy when it was on TCM?

Nothing pastel or off about the colour - it was vibrant and excellent.

[LA]

On the single occasion I saw The Immortal Story (on a Conoisseur Video (BFI) copy), it struck me as quite an eerie, chilling film, the logical conclusion of those moments of modernist unease that occur in The Trial and (to a lesser extent) Chimes at Midnight. There's a Senses of Cinema piece by Adrian Danks in which he compares the ending to Resnais. A disconcerting film, totally different from Chimes and F for Fake. It felt...dead, for want of a better word.

On the copy I saw, the colours seemed to bleed into each other, huge brushstrokes of red, blue and yellow. Whether this was intentional or not (and of course images on videotape generally have a degree of bleeding), it was an interesting effect.

[Terry]

The only copy I had was a cruddy VHS tape which I got from Video Yesteryear.

It had terrible colour. Clay's flesh looked grayish-green, and it did have that "pastel" look.

However, when I saw it on TCM I discovered how straightforward and superb the colour was originally - they had a pristine print and it doesn't look like Welles was experimenting with a pastel colour palette.

[Terry]

I've seen one of the dubbed foreign-language DVDs of it as well (I forget from which country) - the colour in that was the same as on the TCM print.

[jaime marzol]

harvey, you always think the worst of me. no, it's not a joke.

LA said:
On the copy I saw, the colours seemed to bleed into each other, huge brushstrokes of red, blue and yellow. Whether this was intentional or not (and of course images on videotape generally have a degree of bleeding), it was an interesting effect.

this is the copy i have. nothing conventional about it. it's bursting with colors. the dvd is normal looking, superb color, yes, and boring as a MF to watch. what i saw on vhs was rather thrilling.

[Jeff Wilson]

Based on the print shown at Locarno, the DVD is a better representation of the color scheme than whatever VHS sources are out there. The only other version I've seen was taken from the UK tape, and it looked washed out, color-wise.

[colwood]

Based on the print shown at Locarno, the DVD is a better representation of the color scheme than whatever VHS sources are out there. The only other version I've seen was taken from the UK tape, and it looked washed out, color-wise.

Thanks for putting it in a stronger context Jeff.

[Jeff Wilson]

I don't want to claim to be the absolute authority, as I can only speak to what I've seen. The only other sources I have seen were a bootleg tape and a bootleg DVD, and they both looked washed out in terms of color.

[R Kadin]

Okay, it looks like I'm going to have to be the naysayer here, folks.

As recommended, I have read McBride's take on this film and I have viewed (several times, actually) the Italian DVD, which I now understand to be about as authentic a representation as is available. And, for all its flashes of ineffably Wellesian brilliance, on balance it still comes across as portentously dull and thematically sophomoric - self-indulgent, even.

The setting, the characters - these resonate on neither a real nor an allegorical plane, the use of such blatantly symbolic monikers as "Mr. Clay" or "Virginie", notwithstanding. Calling the plot a contrivance, along with the motives, actions - yea, even the existence - of the characters would be a monumental understatement. The leaden performances are graduate film school calibre, at best, as is much of the interior lighting. (Could the use of gels be any more obvious? By what sublime aesthetic does one ignore the appearance of hot spots behind ceramic floor pots arranged all too evidently to hide the lights responsible for their otherwise impossible existence? How does an airless, windowless interior remain as brightly and uniformly illuminated even after its only door has been shut?? As excuses go, allusions to Brecht can begin to wear pretty thin, even in Welles' case.)

For all its intermittent chromatic beauty and its periodically arresting compositional array, the film is unengaging - and not in an ironically engaging way.

Perhaps one day I shall warm to it as so many others here have done before me. If so, I welcome that prospect; but, for now, please feel free to start the screening without me.

[RayKelly]

Thank you R Kadin! I always thought it was just me. At first I blamed the poor quality bootlegs. When I bought the Italian DVD (and later watched the TCM presentation), I realized I was probably never going to like this film. I am also not too crazy about The Trial, but I seem to be in the minority on that.:blues: